Bhubaneswar: The Odisha Protection of Interests of Depositors (OPID) Court in Balasore has convicted two persons for cheating a non-banking financial company (NBFC) of Rs 1.64 crore by disbursing 13 loans in favour of fictitious loanees by using forged documents, official sources said Wednesday.
While the court awarded seven years of rigorous imprisonment (RI) and slapped a penalty of Rs 3 lakh on Sashikanta Sahoo under Sections 409, 420, 467, 468, 471, 472 and 120-B of the IPC, it held Sashikanta’s brother Srikanta Sahoo guilty under Sections 409, 420, 471, 472 and 120-B of the IPC and awarded him five years of RI apart from slapping Rs 2 lakh penalty on him, Special Public Prosecutor Pranab Kumar Panda said.
“In case of failure to pay the fine, both the convicts will undergo further two years of imprisonment,” the court ordered. Panda said V Kishore Kumar, the territory manager of Sundaram Finance Limited approached the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) in November 2019 alleging that Sashikanta, an executive at the Balasore branch of the NBFC, his brother Srikanta, proprietor of M/s Hanumanjew Furniture and a few others have cheated the finance company to a tune of Rs 1.64 crore by fraudulently disbursing loans in favour of fictitious loanees by using forged documents. “During the probe, it was found that 13 contracts against 11 customers worth Rs 1.64 crore were recommended by Sashikanta— executive (Customer Relation, Tractor Unit, Balasore) of Sundaram Finance to the credit authority, Head office of Sundaram Finance for approval of the loan for the purchase of KARTAR make Harvesters,” Panda said. The proposals were given in the name of dealer ‘Utkal Agro Centre’, Bhadrak, the authorised dealer of KARTAR Harvesters in Odisha.
On receipt of the approval from the credit authority of Sundaram Finance Limited, Sashikanta falsely prepared the loan documents, procured KYC documents of the fictitious loanees and sent them to the payment department for disbursement of the loan amount. In the documents of loanees, Sashikanta changed the name of the dealer from Utkal Agro Centre to M/s Hanumanjew Furniture and M/s Utkal Enterprises which are falsely created by Sashikanta in connivance with his brothers. Accordingly, entire loan amount of Rs 1.64 crore was disbursed in the accounts of dealer M/s Hanumanjew Furniture and M/s Utkal Enterprises which are owned by Sashikanta’s brothers.